Bowling alley

History

By the late 1830s in New York City, the Knickerbocker Hotel's bowling alley had opened, with three lanes.

In the late 19th century, bowling was revived in many U.S. cities. Alleys were often located in saloon basements and provided a place for working-class men to meet, socialize, and drink alcohol. Bars were and still are a principal feature of bowling alleys. The sport remained popular during the Great Depression and, by 1939, there were 4,600 bowling alleys across the United States. New technology was implemented in alleys, including the 1952 introduction of automatic pinsetters (or pinspotters), which replaced pin boys who manually placed bowling pins. Today, most bowling alley facilities are operated by Bowlero Corporation.

In 2015, over 70 million people bowled in the United States.

| File:18361008 Drunkeries - bowling alley miserably profane chaps - Fall River Monitor (Massachusetts).jpg | Bowling alleys often had a negative image, as shown in this 1836 editorial portraying bowling alleys as "drunkeries" that were "visited by a set of as miserably profane, drunken, worthless chaps as can be found".

| File:18380310 Evasions of Law - Logansport Telegraph.png | An 1838 Indiana newspaper describes how tenpin bowling was devised to evade a Baltimore statute prohibiting nine-pin bowling.

| File:18380618 Kickerbocker Hotel bowling alleys - Morning Herald (New York).jpg | To project a classy image, this 1838 New York newspaper ad for the Knickerbocker Hotel's three bowling lanes boasted "excellent accommodations" and appealed to "gentlemen to perform their ablutions".

Modern day

|File:1895 Bowling lane cross section.jpg | Cutaway view looking horizontally: Adjusting screws at the sides of bowling lanes in this 1895 cross-sectional diagram allow the lanes to be made flat and level, to ensure repeatable ball reaction.

Bowling alleys contain long and narrow synthetic or wooden lanes. The number of lanes inside a bowling alley is variable. The Inazawa Grand Bowl in Japan is the largest bowling alley in the world, with 116 lanes.

Human pinsetters were used at bowling alleys to set up the pins, but modern ten-pin bowling alleys have automatic mechanical pinsetters.

Each lane has an overhead monitor/television screen to display bowling scores and a seating area and tables for dining and socializing.

With a decades-long decline in league participation, modern bowling alleys usually offer other games (often billiard tables, darts and arcade games) and may serve food or beverages, usually via vending machines or an integrated bar or restaurant. Pro shops and party rooms are common.

Effect of lane characteristics on the game

References

Works cited

References

1. (December 1892). "Bowling". American Sports Publishing Company.
2. "The History of Bowling".
3. (26 March 2015). "Sports in America from Colonial Times to the Twenty-First Century". Routledge.
4. Goldsmith, Margie. (November 28, 2016). "America's Coolest Bowling Alleys". [[Travel + Leisure]].
5. (October 8, 1836). "Drunkeries". Fall River Monitor and Weekly Recorder.
6. (March 10, 1838). "Evasions of Law". Logansport Telegraph.
7. (June 18, 1838 }} (edition of ''New York Daily Herald'') ([[:File:18380618 Kickerbocker Hotel bowling alleys - Morning Herald (New York).jpg). "Communicated - Bowling Alleys". Morning Herald.
8. (1895). "Bowling Catalog E". Narragansett Machine Company.
9. Data: [[Wayback Machine]] archives of USBC's bowl.com website. Links provided on [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1997-_USBC_membership_and_certified_lanes.png Wikimedia's image page] ([https://web.archive.org/web/20190403153229/https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1997-_USBC_membership_and_certified_lanes.png 2019-04-03 archive thereof])
10. Mautner, Rob. "Stop, Look, and Listen to the Lanes!". [[Bowling This Month]].
11. [http://www.bowlingdigital.com/bowl/node/7445 Guinness World Records confirms Inazawa Grand Bowl world's largest Bowling Center]